#Clearproof

I was chosen to receive the Clearproof line from Mary Kay and boy was I excited! Post baby hormones and stress have done crazy things to my skin.  I was hoping this could be just the thing to clear it all up.  My face was dry in some places and oily and blemish in others.  I moved sometime after submitting my address and the shipping of my VoxBox so I waited a while to receive it-about the time I gave up on my box it showed up at my house, I only had to pay $6.72 to get it from the postal carrier.  Blah, oh well, if I were to buy it on my own from Mary Kay the system would cost $45.  I surrendered my cash and tore open the box.  It's a four part system.  Cleaner, toner, moisturizer and treatment cream.  The cream instantly made me nervous, I'm allergic to pimple creams-even the one by Mary Kay made my eye swell shut years ago when I was a teenager and even more self-conscious.  I thought I "might" try it or I may let my husband review that part for me, depending on how brave I felt the next time a pimple showed up.

I put the cleanser in the shower and waited until morning to try it. The next morning I popped the top and applied - my first thought was that it went on smoothly, my second thought was that it smelled very much like chemicals.  Now, I realize that a scent in and of itself mostly comes from chemicals but I think I missed the "nice" smell that some cleaners have.  My next step, after the shower was the toner.  I love toner, I think it really helps with my pores! And this is in a great squeeze bottle that makes it easy to squirt onto a cotton ball.  Overall, I liked the toner.  The moisturizer kind of weirded me out, you are supposed to apply it in an upward motion, pretty sure if that's how you are supposed to apply creams I have never done that right.  Just feels weird.  It went on fine and my skin felt alright after, not tight, not itchy, and not overly wet either.  I held off on the pimple cream then because I didn't have anything blatantly obvious.  I did try it later and - Hooray! I did not swell or break out!

I really did like this line but, to me, nothing was really exciting about it.  I don't know what would have made it exciting, perhaps a scent, perhaps really spectacular results. I didn't notice any big change but I also found myself going back to my old regimen.  My old regimen simply feels more "natural" (and I am not a crunchy granola type of person) I had been trying out a blogger's recommendations of  coconut oil, witch hazel and grapeseed oil.  By this point in my testing of the product I am back to my old routine.  My husband continues to use the Clearproof cleanser and pimple cream and is very happy with it.  I am very happy I was able to try out the system thanks to @Influenster and @MaryKay.  I appreciated the opportunity and had fun getting to review things once again.

Being "IN" on "Influenster"

There are a couple of websites that I have a membership with in which I get to check out products and review them.  Influenster is my favorite! I have applied for and been accepted into several campaigns in which I have been able to sample a lot of products at once.  They send you a survey and if you qualify you start the process of anxiously awaiting the arrival of your VoxBox (that's what they call the boxes).  After you get your box you "check it in" and then check out certain tasks associated with each product.  Sometimes they want to hear from you but other times they want to see you, such as pictures or videos.  I can't say that I ever have and not sure I would ever submit a video but I have had to take a few "selfies" in regards to showing off their products...I think that is the part that makes me most uncomfortable.  But I have done it because I want to be a good reviewer.

All in all you get to try out products, some that I would never try on my own risk free and cost free.  Recently @Influenster has added VoxPerks which are discounts you can try without even being accepted into a campaign.  They also have added @InfluensterApp that allows you to review products on your phone or tablet.  You can review products that you receive in a VoxBox or products you try on your own.  You should apply to be an Influenster (influenster.com) and find more out on your own.  I love being a member!

Hayneedle Give Away

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Just how big are these blessing filled raindrops?

(AKA the scary stuff)

If you are in the Christian music community I'm sure you have heard Laura Story's "Blessings."  Although I think it is a beautiful song and I really enjoyed it when it first came out I kind of think that it can be a "go-to" song for when things don't turn out like we planned.  I know that my way is not always God's way.  But if it's alright I'd like to say I'm over the raindrops! I would like my blessings to not be disguised all the time.  

Some of that is silliness, I know.   It was just this morning that my heart was filled until tears ran down my face at just how blessed I am.  My husband is supportive, kind, loving and fabulous man of God.  He works so that I can stay home with our beautiful daughter (I know everyone says they have a beautiful daughter, but mine really is). He has blessed me with a snuggly, giggly, little girl who constantly steals my heart and warms the hearts of everyone she encounters.  I have been able to easily conceive three babies, though one I did not get to meet.  I have a feisty little guy growing in my belly that is a constant reminder of God's gifts.  His diagnosis has people all over my city and this state on their knees for him and for us.  I have been blessed from birth.  My parents are gifts.  My mom is a joy always there for her family and my dad is a source of strength.  Just this month God saved him for us.  He had a heart attack, his first one, and we found out that his heart was in need of four stents.  I have a great brother and sister in law that love us and love our little girl like she were their own.  I have been showered with blessings, not disguised blessings, out-and-out, no-doubt-about-it blessings.  

But for the times I feel weak and picked on it's easy to worry about the things I don't yet know about.  Mostly things relating to "our boy."  Yes, that is what we are still calling him.  No, he doesn't have a name yet.  

These things have been nagging at me for over a month. Sometimes they are loud other times more of a whisper just loud enough to wake me from my rest or to break through my praises to Him.  

~I feel sad about my delivery date instead of eagerly awaiting his arrival.  Right now, he is safe, safe in the dark of my belly. What happens May 29th? He's on his own then, his little body will have to work on it's own and will begin a decline that will end in a frightening open heart surgery.  

~What happens if his decline happens very quickly? Why can't I be a mom and not nurse mom? I don't want to worry about all of my old work terms at home on a Thursday night.  I don't to have to say "lethargy, cyanosis, failure to thrive, oxygen exchange, pulmonary hypertension"  Even more so, I don't want to be in a state of worry of how sick is too sick.  How much failing to thrive is the magic amount that cues the surgery? 

~It might sound selfish or silly but I feel like life is over after May 29th.  I am so scared that life will never look "normal" again.  Health decline, germophobia, poor eating, no sleep for mommy, trying to still give to my daughter, then surgery, more fear of germs, life without a spleen (school? home school? will he even be able to go to nursery?) doctor's appointments after doctor's appointments all of these things are in my future. Perhaps it seems pessimistic, it might be, but it could also be a very accurate portrayal of the life ahead of me.  It is better to be prepared or to be surprised when things aren't as bad as I had prepared for?

~What if the outcome is less than favorable? Will I be able to be okay with that? Will I have terrible guilt? Will I be able to still be present for Norah?

~I worry so much about my girl, too.  My first little love has no clue what's ahead and at 2 there is not much I can explain that she will understand right now.  Heck, she's not even clear on "baby brother."  She is so snuggly and lovey and I never want her to feel like we don't have time for her.  I think it is challenging enough for an older kid to have a baby arrive how will I split my time with her and with a baby that very much needs my attention too.  I want her to still sit on my lap and ask me to "hold you." There is no way she knows how much I will need that in my life how much I currently need it.  

~We haven't made him a room because our house is on the market and we are praying it sells before his arrival. Sometimes I feel like not making a room for him looks like I don't plan for him to come home with us.  Which is not the case, he IS coming home with us! He will live wherever we are living.  He will live his little life to the fullest.  I am totally in love with that little nugget.  I cannot wait to touch his nose to my nose and tell him it will all be ok.  If we sell this house soon, hubby better hold on, there is months worth of nesting I've been stifling.  Don't think my body knowing there is only 13 weeks left has been easy.  

~We don't yet know where his surgery will be and thus we cannot prepare much at all.  

~I fear that all my fears will make me want to hold back from him, to put up some sort of guard for my heart.  He deserves all my love as well.  

I don't think about these things much. They don't occupy my thoughts all the time.  But they have for a few days and I'm hoping that typing them out helps.  I have only cried a few times since learning his diagnosis.  But today I have cried about 8 times.  Could be hormones, very possible it's hormones.  Could be that next week is the would be due date of the baby we lost.  Could also be that my stiff upper lip cream ran out (mental note: buy more stiff upper lip cream).   All in all it's okay to know that my brave face and big smile have cracks in them.  Though I know God has this He doesn't expect me to not react. He is walking with us through this, He has tears too.  His tears are because my heart is aching and His heart aches too. 

New Diagnosis

We had an appointment on Wednesday for a fetal cardiac echo.  It took three technicians and an hour and a half for the actual echo.  During this 90 minutes we heard tons of acronyms thrown around we also hear a lot of "Is that?.....hmm....well that's good" and a few "do you think that's.....? yep, that's what I thought."  After the second tech we learned that our boy's heart was in fact on the left side of his chest (where is it supposed to be).  That led to a sense of relief immediately followed by dread because they were still looking, still commenting, and still "hmmm"ing. I heard "VSD" "common atria" "DORV" and a whole lot of "PA" "RV" and such.  Because before I was a stay at home mom I was a nurse all of these things made me cringe.  Our boy was also very uncooperative.  For most of the 90 minutes he was transverse and in a ball with his bum to them.  I was poked and prodded, asked to lay on my left and then right side my belly was gently manipulated and then later I had that stupid probe pushed far enough in my chicken nuggets were displaced.

After "the legend" of a tech was done with us the Dr. disappeared and we went to the conference room to await our news.  We waited there for about 15 minutes while he went back and forth down the hall with pictures he had drawn of hearts.  

He came in and sat down, we thought we were ready, but we weren't.  The new news is that our boy does not have dextrocardia, it perhaps would have been easier if he had.  Our new diagnosis is "Probable Right Atrial Isomerism."  While his organs were forming and being told where to go most things got labeled "right" and so our boy (if it is truly RAI) has morphologically 2 right lungs and 2 right kidneys.  We do know that his stomach is on the right (which is the wrong) side of his body and we also know that he has complete AVSD.  This means holes in his heart.  Two of them, one between the atria and one between the ventricles (this one is fairly large).  We know he will have open heart surgery in the first few months of his life, most likely before 6 months.  Another issue with RAI is that most (like 95%) of patients with this diagnosis do not have spleens.  I know you can live without a spleen, but I don't like it! 

There is not a ton of information on this condition on the internet that is very current.  Most of it is doom and gloom and bleak outcomes but most of it is at least 20 years old.  Our cardiologist seemed to think that though this is still heart surgery, it is not the most difficult heart surgery and the outcomes are pretty good.  

Now to process all of this, a lot of times it doesn't seem like real life.  Are we really talking about heart surgery? Will I be able to feed him? Will we sleep in the first year after he is born? How will our toddler handle sharing Mommy and Daddy with a baby brother that will demand a lot of attention? How many tubes and drains? How much pain? Will he play? $$$? Am I eating enough? If I lay like this can he breathe? Do I buy clothes? Just newborn? Will he grow? How big will his scar be? How hard will it be to recover from open heart surgery without a spleen? Who can we trust to open our baby's chest and mess around with his heart, another hospital, another state? God, can you just fix it? Are we going through this to reach others for you? Can't I just invite people over for dinner? Will he live? What type of quality of life are we talking about? Will I ever be able to leave the house after May? Am I going to be that crazy hand sanitizer mom? Does having a baby with CHD and no spleen give you license to be the crazy hand sanitizer mom?  

I just want to touch my nose to his and give Eskimo kisses.  

I have to know that God has this.  He's not surprised.  He's given us months to prepare.  He has never failed me before and I don't expect Him to start.  

Our boy is safe where he is.

The verse I've been given this week is "I will sustain you" 

He is still an awesome God.  

For When you Find Out More Than Just the Gender at the Ultrasound

On December 30th we went to find out if we would be welcoming a boy or a girl into our lives this summer.  We saw a little head, a tiny tummy, squirmy little arms and legs, and boy parts! I was in shock, I had been pretty sure we were having another girl.  After all, someone should wear all those pink clothes we have in the attic.  Norah had even told me we were having a "baby seester." As I sat there with my belly exposed processing adding blue into our lives, the US technician got quiet (very unusual for her - she is a hoot!)  She kept moving the probe over my belly and then she would pause, and move again.  At one point she said "I just need to figure out how he's laying" and then began to label his sides "L" and "R".  I knew something was up.  Our gender ultrasound with Norah was all of 15 minutes and we had been there for close to 30.  She finally said that the problem was that our baby boy's heart was located on the right side of his chest, Situs Inversus Dextrocardia.  It was essentially a mirror image of what it should be.  Just the heart, everything appears to be in place, at least on the ultrasound. This meant we would be needing an appointment with a Fetal Cardiologist.  I thought it meant immediately and we would soon have answers what it actually meant is that we would wait for our answers.  Almost a month of waiting.  My husband looked it up while we were still in the ultrasound room and found out that it's not as rare as one would think.  The rest of the appointment seemed to go alright despite our news.  We decided I would have a second cesarean section sometime in May. I would deliver him around 38-39 weeks partially because of "the heart thing" and also because I have placenta previa.  My OB told me she was more concerned about the previa than the heart, I realized later this is obvious because her job is to get a baby out of my uterus and into the world after that he goes to another doctor.  

I decided I wouldn't look it up.  I didn't need to psych myself out over something I can't control.  I didn't need to start asking questions to which I could not yet have answers.  God tells me not to worry.  Cast my cares upon Him.  So that's what I did.  For 12 days I didn't look up anything to do with dextrocardia.  I still thought about, wondered about and talked about "the heart thing."  I stayed off of wikipedia and WebMD until I couldn't anymore.  I didn't want to look like an idiot on the 22nd (the day of our appointment).  So with little more than a week until our appointment I "Googled" it.  

I had been told by several friends and some of them in the medical field that they knew a person who had dextrocardia or had seen several patients who had it and you would never know unless you were trying to find their heart beat.  That had been my mantra for the 12 days before google.    Normal but just an oddly placed heart.  I found that "normal" is possible but it is rare.  More often than not things are more complicated.  Complicated can mean Kartagener syndrome (problems with the cilia in nostrils and air passages), Double outlet right ventrical (both arteries come from the right ventricle), Endocardial cushion defect (the walls in the heart are weak), pulmonary valve stenosis, the heart has only one ventrical, transposition of the great vessels, ventricular septal defect (a hole that is present early on in the fetuses life did not close). 

There is still a chance that it is simple dextrocardia! Please don't think I have resigned myself to doom and gloom.  I am praying that in 8 days we will find out that our boy has an anomaly.  A little oddity that makes him different from his friends.  I did see a saying from a mom with a baby with dextrocardia, she said "I like that when I hold my baby our hearts touch." I know this is enough to make tons of men groan and roll their eyes but it did help me.  

Today I am being emotional.  It could be the hormones.  It could also be that in the last month I started having contractions at 15 weeks, went to the Dr., found out that I was not in danger of preterm labor but I do have placenta previa, fell on Christmas Day and dislocated a bone in my foot and sprained it badly, found out that my baby's heart is on the right side of his chest, got a cold, toddler got a cold, and my toddler got croup.  Yunno, it could be any or all of that.  It is weird that three times in the last 24 hours when I have been worried God has given me three different 90's worship songs.  Crazy, these are not songs that would be in my head for any logical reason! They aren't songs that have said everything is sunshine and rainbows they have been songs that have declared HIS greatness and ability.  Our God is an Awesome God.  Today I have heard in my head "Cast all your cares upon Him, he cares for you." 

I don't know what the appointment will hold.  I pray for good news but I am also preparing myself for the news that our sweet boy might need surgery.  God hasn't told me either way yet He has told me that He is in control.  For now I am leaning on Him for wisdom and strength, or trying to.  I am weak, I am human, I worry and fret, I rely on myself too often, I want earthly answers when I have heavenly promises, but that is not the end of the story.  I have Christ.  I have a supply of grace and mercy for when mine runs low.  I have a source of peace that I can understand.  After all, my God got me through the loss of a baby only six months ago surely I can trust Him to get me through the uncertainty of "the heart thing." 

Today, I will love on my wonderful husband, snuggle my beautiful baby girl, and plan for a bright and wonderful future of our little boy because "I will not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Matthew 6:34